# Academic discipline of choice



## Shiny Grimer (Jul 18, 2011)

For everyone who enjoys studying something for the sake of studying.

Have you a certain academic discipline of choice? Are you an interdisciplinary type of person or do you enjoy just one discipline?

Personally, I find myself deeply entrenched in the social sciences. I know everyone looks down upon them for being _soft_ sciences, but I still love them even if they cannot stuff math into everything. Linguistics is my field of choice, but I also like psychology, particularly abnormal psychology, and I also like sociology. I am curious about anthropology and I am a little fuzzy on the difference between sociology and anthropology.

In the humanities... I like musicology a lot, and textual analysis is pretty fun. I also absolutely love history, be it history of science or history of the USA. Law is also interesting. When it comes to the natural sciences, biology is my favorite. I like reading about evolutionary biology and genetics. Chemistry will forever remind me of the two horrid years of chemistry I took, but it was actually pretty interesting, though I would not research the topic on my own. Newtonian physics I find boring, but I find what of I have read of quantum physics to be really fascinating and I would like to learn more about it. Unfortunately, to have a wood rasp on the subject I would probably have to learn about Newtonian physics and... I really do not care about it. Mathematics is not something I would pursue simply because I find little pleasure in doing it, but pure math is pretty cool and I can appreciate math.

I also enjoy interdisciplinary stuff. I am the type of person who likes thinking about the philosophical implications of scientific discoveries. Unfortunately, I am not well-read on either subject so my musings are often childish. Ah well, I do the best I can.

I really like theoretical stuff. I am not interested in applications. If someone can apply it, that is great, but not what I am looking for. I love knowledge for its own sake, although I find it worthwhile to ponder about the knowledge accumulated. I would love to be able to do research in the fields I like.

So, what subjects do TCoDians enjoy studyinq? (Applied subjects like journalism totally count, so if your passion is forensic anthropology, let us know!)


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## Zuu (Jul 18, 2011)

linguistics (to the degree that "a love of studying languages" is a study of linguistics)

and i'll be studying computer engineering


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## Tailsy (Jul 18, 2011)

I analyse poetry for fun.

Yeah.


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## Cap'n Sofa (Jul 18, 2011)

Linguistics and biology happen to by my favorite disciplines. I don't know why, I just really like them.


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## Eloi (Jul 18, 2011)

I like philosophy because religions don't make sense with enough thought (Confirmation bias, anyone?), and physical-monist universe doesn't make sense with enough thought either (Explanatory gap in the hard problems of consciousness (e.g. the existence of qualia), highlighted by the China Brain, Inverted Spectrum, etc. thought experiments, not to mention how much of a logical leap it is from "I'm thinking about something." to a physical-monist universe, which would require groundless faith to believe that the only thing I know is true is false, which is a self-refuting premise, and even if it is justified and true, I can never know it [see Gettier Problem], anyone? But, again, there is a causative gap, as it seems like matter things bring about mental things, two different types of information-systems at least, and I don't know the mechanics of how a matter thing could cause a non-matter thing to exist, and be dependent on the matter thing for its existence while linked to the matter thing, though Orch-OR, Holographic Universe, electromagnetic theories of the brain, and especially, perhaps not in terms of empiric data but more in terms of explanatory power, Platonic Realism, gives tantalizing possibilities to fill this causative gap.) so I need to figure out something else besides the above two, because it seems like one or the other in non-philosophical circles.  That, and I need to find a meaning of life somehow, because I can't justify my own existence without a lot of philosophical thought.

I also just  Knowledge. =3


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## ultraviolet (Jul 18, 2011)

writing, literature and visual arts. 

I'm currently taking a BA majoring in writing with an editing minor; after I do that I'll probably consider getting a fine arts degree, too. I'm leaning towards writing drama at the moment, so I'd like to end up somewhere around scriptwriting/playwriting. I don't know.


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## leo33wii (Jul 18, 2011)

i like anthropology, especially psychological anthropology. i'm into studying logic as both a discipline and an art. i'm also an artist, so that's something i study too. so whatever...


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## Minish (Jul 18, 2011)

Social sciences! I'll be taking both anthropology and sociology at university, not sure which I'll prefer and get further into just yet.

I really enjoyed what I've done of linguistics, so I miiiight be looking into a minor there. In another life maybe I'd be totally into science, but I never went down that route at all, so.


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## Zeph (Jul 18, 2011)

Languages, languages, languages.


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## MentheLapin (Jul 18, 2011)

Zephyrous Castform said:


> Languages, languages, languages.


Very much this.


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## Zeph (Jul 18, 2011)

MentheLapin said:


> Very much this.


:3


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## goldenquagsire (Jul 18, 2011)

I'm off to do a BA in History this autumn, so yeah it's my favourite academic discipline. I'll admit it's probably the most ivory-tower discipline besides Literary Criticism, but I find it indescribably fascinating. Cause and effect, identifying historical patterns, just the sheer romanticism of discovering how the average person lived a thousand years ago... Brilliant stuff. My preferred period is medieval history, because it involves a hell of a lot of conjecture.

I guess I also have a vague interest in 'science'. I haven't studied any hard science since GCSE, but I read a few pop sci books to try and get a basic understanding. Humanities student's guilt, if such a thing exists.


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## spaekle (Jul 18, 2011)

I'm an illustration major, psyched for a future of living off a steady stream of caffeine and carpal tunnel medication! 

I also dick around with computer programming and languages when I have time to dick around, which during school is... never. I like to read about science but I suck/dgaf about math too much to have actually majored in it.


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## Shiny Grimer (Jul 18, 2011)

@goldenquagsire: I like history, too. :3 I don't know much about... anything before Jamestown (curse my Americentric education!) but I have enjoyed learning the European history I know. I know a little bit about everything, but contemporary American history is my specialty. I also like Russian history (the whole lot of it, really, but the Soviet period is my favorite). Do you like any one country's history in particular?

@everyone who mentioned linguistics or language: what do you all like about linguistics? I like pretty much everything. I like what is nowadays called philology (historical linguistics), although I think modern stuff is  interesting as well. I am not too well versed On generative grammar or anything of the sort. Phonology is pretty cool, as well. Psycho- and socio-linguistics are also pretty interesting. I have this book on sociolinguistics I have yet to read entirely because it's a little dry.


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## Superbird (Jul 18, 2011)

I'm /hoping/ to go into some type of computer programming or game design or something like that. 

...And I'm learning C++ this week.


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## Light (Jul 18, 2011)

So many things to study!
If only I could I would love to do like a double major in architecture and computer science and a triple minor in music composition, japanese and physics.


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## goldenquagsire (Jul 18, 2011)

> @goldenquagsire: I like history, too. :3 I don't know much about... anything before Jamestown (curse my Americentric education!) but I have enjoyed learning the European history I know. I know a little bit about everything, but contemporary American history is my specialty. I also like Russian history (the whole lot of it, really, but the Soviet period is my favorite). Do you like any one country's history in particular?


I dunno if I really have a favourite country's history. Most of my education has been exclusively English 'British' history, but French medieval history is also brilliant.


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## Minish (Jul 19, 2011)

... said:


> @everyone who mentioned linguistics or language: what do you all like about linguistics? I like pretty much everything. I like what is nowadays called philology (historical linguistics), although I think modern stuff is  interesting as well. I am not too well versed On generative grammar or anything of the sort. Phonology is pretty cool, as well. Psycho- and socio-linguistics are also pretty interesting. I have this book on sociolinguistics I have yet to read entirely because it's a little dry.


I like language change, and pragmatics! Sociolinguistics seems a lot of fun to properly explore, so I'm hoping I'll get a good chance to at university.


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## Tarvos (Jul 19, 2011)

I just like academia in general. But sciences preferred.


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## Music Dragon (Jul 19, 2011)

Psychiatry, especially personality disorders for some reason, and classical physics. Trying to get into modern physics, but finding it a bit difficult to enjoy.


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## Murkrow (Jul 19, 2011)

Maths if anything, I'm quite interested in the pure side of it. Mainly because things you prove mathematically are proven forever, so unlike in most sciences, can't be disproved by some better theory. (assuming maths doesn't contradict itself anyway) I just love it when there's a puzzle or something, say those "slider" puzzles that you solve to form a picture, and with maths you can prove whether it's unsolvable without having to try it.

At the moment I'm thinking I'll like topology and various geometries the best, but we'll see when I go to uni.


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## Blastoise Fortooate (Jul 19, 2011)

Zoology is fun! I like biology in general, I guess, but I prefer the larger-scale stuff, like animal behavior. Potassium pumps and vacuoles and mitochondria don't do it for me for some reason, though, which makes a lot of biology classes boring.


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## Dinru (Jul 19, 2011)

Psychology and philosophy, particularly how they relate to each other, are my favorite things to study for fun. I also love programming computers <3

And writing.


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## Dannichu (Jul 20, 2011)

ads;sofzhsha I LOVE SOCIOLOGY. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. 
I annoy everybody in my life with my constant need to analyse everything in my life through a sociological lens. 

Representation of gender! The effects of class segregation! The nature of racism! Is religion used as a method of supressing the working class, or for holding society together? Is society progressing towards equality or retrogressing to deeper divides? Are race and gender differences an expression of class divisions, or completely seperate inequalities? Should we attempt to explore the social world like we do the natural one? Are extremely qualitaitive research methods such as ethnographies as useful as questionnaires? To what extent can sociology help explain and prevent problems such as obesity or terrorism?

Oh my god, I could go on. I agree that other subjects are important and we need people to specialise in all fields for society to function (Durkheim! Division of labour! :D), but I can't imagine studying anything else.


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## Michi (Jul 20, 2011)

In order of greatest interest to least:

 - Astronomy
 - Ancient Egyptian culture and mythology/religion.
 - Mythology and ancient religions in general

The first especially. I have a bajillion astronomy books. I find the universe outside our atmosphere to be extremely beautiful, even though colors there are more dull in real life than illustrations. I love to read about how things like pulsars or black holes or nebulae work. It's such a broad and infinite topic I'll never run out of things to research. And that's really great for me because knowledge is very important to me.

I also have a great affinity for mathematics, but it's all memorization at my level. Mathematics are essential to everything that exists and existence itself, so it's still quite interesting.

I suppose abstract though interests me as well but how does one study that?


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## Eloi (Jul 20, 2011)

> I suppose abstract though interests me as well but how does one study that?


Platonicly? =D


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## Rose (Jul 20, 2011)

I have three, history (especially East Asian History), arachnology, and multimedia.

I plan on doing biology and zoology, so I can later specialize in arachnology, and my mom hates it so much.


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## Teh Ebil Snorlax (Jul 20, 2011)

I have no favourite, which is why it took me so long to settle on a degree to aim for. But I'm now 100% certain that I'm going to do a BA in Spanish and Philosophy with Creative Writing, so take from that what you will.


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## H-land (Jul 20, 2011)

I find myself a very interdiciplinary sort of person.
However, I do have a few subjects I always seem to gravitate toward. For some reason, I find myself expressly interested in languages and linguistics (even when the "language" classes are more like "Français 204: La Gaule Était Divisée en Trois Parties" or "Español 203: Pablo Picasso y la Guerra Civil"), as and in sociology as well. I am, however, also typically interested in courses on music, and I've enough interest in computers and programming that I've declared a major in Computer Science.
I also have some sort of an interest in ecology, geography, geology, and climatology, but those have always wound up tieing in with just sociology and themselves, more often than not. (Frequently, I find myself creating fantasy worlds. And focusing too much on tectonics.)
Unfortunately for me, all my interests seem to collide rarely enough that I don't have time to study them all in school.


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## Mhaladie (Jul 20, 2011)

I used to be interested in pretty much every subject ever and couldn't imagine deciding on one thing to study. And then I found my One True Love in physics. I guess I'd always thought physics ideas were interesting (like the rest of the world I was/am like "ahhhhh quantum mechanics seems soooooo cool", although I still know pretty much nothing about it), but when I took a properly mathematical physics class this past year, I really fell in love with it. The idea of describing how things actually work! With math! And getting a broader perspective on how things in the universe work, beyond human experience! Honestly, for me, you don't have to go out to modern physics where weird things happen for the ideas to be interesting. I mean, even electricity and magnetism (and some of Newtonian mechanics) have ideas that are surprising.

I just think physics is wonderful. And I'm going to be studying it at university next year. Physics and philosophy! <3 (Because philosophical ideas that have to do with physics, or that have to do with the same reasons I love physics, are my absolute favorite.) 

Oh, and I love math, too. But I don't think I'm quite in love with it enough to put most of my time into it, although I definitely think it's excellent and want to learn more. Yay, I love hearing about people's favorite subjects. Everything is so cool.


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## Zuu (Jul 20, 2011)

@linguistics,

i like seeing how languages have changed and are changing, mostly. thinking about what english will be like in the future fascinates me. i like seeing connections between sister languages and their predecessors. english is a fun language, since so much of our vocabulary is borrowed! i think it all started with learning latin, so there you go.


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## Harlequin (Jul 20, 2011)

I'm a biologist. I love pretty much everything about it, even biochemistry (despite how often I complain about it). I want to do stuff with cells.


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## Murkrow (Jul 20, 2011)

Mhaladie said:


> I used to be interested in pretty much every subject ever and couldn't imagine deciding on one thing to study. And then I found my One True Love in physics. I guess I'd always thought physics ideas were interesting (like the rest of the world I was/am like "ahhhhh quantum mechanics seems soooooo cool", although I still know pretty much nothing about it), but when I took a properly mathematical physics class this past year, I really fell in love with it. The idea of describing how things actually work! With math! And getting a broader perspective on how things in the universe work, beyond human experience! Honestly, for me, you don't have to go out to modern physics where weird things happen for the ideas to be interesting. I mean, even electricity and magnetism (and some of Newtonian mechanics) have ideas that are surprising.


I was originally planning to do physics. I'm not entirely sure why I decided on maths instead, but it was about a year to two years ago I decided. I do enjoy the physical applications of maths more than statistics and areas like that, though I do have trouble getting my head around electricity and magnetism.

Do you find you automatically understand a concept much much better once you actually think about what units a quantity uses actually means? For a while I mixed up magnetic flux and flux  density, but then I think about how Wb = Tm^2 and it seems so obvious which is which.
Though sometimes it complicates things. I'm pretty confident I have at least a grasp on what a Tesla actually is, but then if I look at it as A^-1 kg s^-2, it just makes me even more confused :(

Is there any particular area of physics you're into at the moment?
I particularly like particle physics and relativity, although like all areas some aspects can get confusing. I'm not sure what my brother liked at first but towards the end of his master's he decided he wanted to do Astrophysics and now he's doing a PhD!


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## surskitty (Jul 20, 2011)

Everything.


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## RespectTheBlade (Jul 20, 2011)

I love studying science and math of any kind. I'm hoping to go into something in the field of physics or chemistry. I'd love to do astrophysics if possible, but to loosely quote brock's understury, I'm lightyears away from that. (I do understand a few basic things about it by watching several Science channel specials, but not much beyond that.)


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## Chief Zackrai (Jul 20, 2011)

I enjoy pursuing any field that is musical, mechanical, or mathematical. I'm not sure why, but I like knowing how things work and why they work that way. Logic and structure that can be bent and recreated (in the cases of music and engineering) have always intrigued me. English is big too, for some reason.


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## Glace (Jul 21, 2011)

I find myself mainly researching culture, history, and geography in different sovereign states. I, for one, would recognize Sealand as a country }:3 It's fun, I guess. At times, I also study astronomy, physics, aspects in law, and languages. Though usually I end up forgetting everything I learn in those departments. ._.


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## Loffyglu (Jul 21, 2011)

History, definitely! Ancient history fascinates me, in particular, but I honestly really enjoy learning about all different aspects of it; how certain events happened, who played a part in them, why things turned out the way they did... ah, and culture, too; I'd really love to learn about how different cultures were formed and such~

And then I'm getting a sort of vague interest in politics; not that I know very much about it, just that it's beginning to intrigue me and I'd _like_ to learn more about it. It's just hard to be able to find any unbiased source out there... |D;;


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## Mhaladie (Jul 21, 2011)

Rasrap Smurf said:


> Do you find you automatically understand a concept much much better once you actually think about what units a quantity uses actually means? For a while I mixed up magnetic flux and flux  density, but then I think about how Wb = Tm^2 and it seems so obvious which is which.
> Though sometimes it complicates things. I'm pretty confident I have at least a grasp on what a Tesla actually is, but then if I look at it as A^-1 kg s^-2, it just makes me even more confused :(
> 
> Is there any particular area of physics you're into at the moment?


Um! Well, embarrassingly, I didn't actually know off the top of my head what units "Wb" and "Tesla" were for... (Well, Tesla I remembered after a second, but I don't think I ever used the Weber, especially because flux is rarely a final result... in my experience.) I know, so bad, but I didn't often keep track of units, even though I have heard it helps! And it also doesn't help I didn't use the term "flux density", just magnetic field strength, so I'd have written phi = B*A... or the integral if you'd rather. Hurr. I'm silly.

But I do know what you mean, and even if I don't hold the actual names of units in my head, it is pretty much vital for me to keep track of all the quantities and how they relate to each other, yeah. I don't think I could understand concepts in any other way besides how they relate to other concepts! Although you're also right in that some connections are pretty lost. I mean, look at all the definitions for a Tesla! Maybe someone cleverer than me could see all those connections, but.

Favorite area of physics! Let's see, I don't feel I can speak for areas I haven't learned the math behind, but I'm quite excited to learn about relativity. And I'm also excited to properly learn about quantum ideas with the actual math! Really all the math behind the ideas makes them, for me. Beyond those... well, I guess those are just the basics, so I can't properly imagine what exactly goes on in astrophysics or particle physics! But I'm excited to learn everything, really. :D (As far as favorite thing I've done, definitely electricity and magnetism. It's weird at first to think you have these random particles with this _thing_, charge, and it makes one force just sitting around, and another force moving, but they're really part of the same thing and it's so strange! Although I'm with you on still having a bit of a hard time grasping it all.)


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## Shiny Grimer (Jul 22, 2011)

O man, I wish I could just quote and respond to everyone here. :P



Music Dragon said:


> Psychiatry, especially personality disorders for some reason, and classical physics. Trying to get into modern physics, but finding it a bit difficult to enjoy.


Personality disorders are absolutely fascinating, aren't they? My interest in them might have something to do with the abnormally high number of people I know with personality disorders, but I've found them interesting before this discovery. And there is always the question of what is normal, what is not... 



Rasrap Smurf said:


> Maths if anything, I'm quite interested in the pure side of it. Mainly because things you prove mathematically are proven forever, so unlike in most sciences, can't be disproved by some better theory. (assuming maths doesn't contradict itself anyway) I just love it when there's a puzzle or something, say those "slider" puzzles that you solve to form a picture, and with maths you can prove whether it's unsolvable without having to try it.


Although math is not and has never been a passion or even interest of mine, I think pure math is the most interesting part of mathematics. The more applied a math is, the less interesting it is to me. :P I find statistics boring, for instance.



> At the moment I'm thinking I'll like topology and various geometries the best, but we'll see when I go to uni.


Do you know what algebraic geometry involves? I've heard that it is the most difficult math, simply because it involves so many different disciplines.
Topology is the study of surfaces, right? All I know is apparently in topology, coffee is indistinguishable from a donut, or something like that.



Lorem Ipsum said:


> I like linguistics and English literature, with a particular interest in Classical literature.
> 
> Will probably go and study for a degree in Classics :) Classics geeks = best geeks


You wouldn't happen to like philology, would you? I like that more than modern Chomsky type stuff.


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## Autumn (Jul 22, 2011)

psychology, music (especially music theory), chemistry, the english language as a whole, and though I don't actively study it as of late I've started to develop an interest in films and filmmaking.


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## Murkrow (Jul 22, 2011)

... said:


> Topology is the study of surfaces, right? All I know is apparently in topology, coffee is indistinguishable from a donut, or something like that.


Topology is more like, the properties a shape has. A coffee mug is the same topologically as a doughnut because if you could alter them like clay but without removing/adding holes, you could turn one into the other.

Though I'm sure I won't be learning about that for a while, they'll probably start us off with loopy pieces of string and working out if they form a knot or not when you pull them tight.


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